Saturday, July 14, 2012

well really it is more like Day 3 or 4 because we had to travel to get where we were. Anyways so that morning the orphanage team got to go Amani baby cottage,and Home sweet home.The Medical team went somewhere but alas us Outreach team members went straight to the Hotel's conference room. We worked on a drama most of the day called Rag Man(you can find it on YouTube) next we spent a few short hours practicing a few other skits as Ice breakers to the crowds.

after many many hours of doing all of this we came to a more serious point were we formed a circle and share something about us.our leader started and took it deep into past hurts and pains that The LORD has healed her from.when she finished she said "you dont have to go to the depths you can share anything you want to" But apparently nobody cared about that and we all opened our hearts and shared our deepest secrets and hurts that we wouldn't normally share with just anyone....ok maybe I would!
no i think by doing this we all got a deeper connection to one another it was Sooo Tight!

(if i ever get a chance to lead an outreach or a project overseas or in the mission field that is an extended amount of time I believe I'll be doing something like what we did in Uganda)(it just connected everyone)

after all that its a bit of a blur what we did.maybe practiced some more.until the teams came back and shared their stories then we went out to eat and prepared for the next day.

Monday, July 2, 2012

on June 14th 2012 we started are adventure from different parts of the U.S. and even Canada. half of us to New York and the other Half to L.A. on the 15th. to start a very long journey.For the NY team we stopped in at Brussels,Belgium for a layover to plane transfer for a short time but then it felt like forever!
We then hopped on the next plane to stop in Rowanda then on to Entebbe,Uganda.

after a bus ride we arrived at the hotel where we would stay for the night and wait for Team L.A. to arrive at the airport.just getting to this point in time seemed like a great adventure already.except the part of being crammed like sardines on the second flight..Usually the Aisle seat is good but not on the plane we had.If your tall it sucks because every aisle seat has a big black box under it that does not move making long legs not fun.though I didnt epect the plane ride to be fun,but this was ridiculous!

anyhow here at the hotel we unloaded the buses and dragged our luggage to our rooms.i remember our room was on the 3rd floor.lol yay

the next morning I awoke thinking I was an hour early for breakfast and when my room mate came up and said are u ready yet? everyone is down stairs already. Already I said.but Its an hour early for breakfast...He looked at me like i was crazy and said so you ready.yea im ready...cool i'll help you with your bags sam.thanks i replied.

down in the lobby mostly everybody has eaten already.so i decide its a good time to go eat.only to find out halfway through breakfast that i was not early that morning but indeed i was an hour late...apparently my phone did not switch over to local time.hahaha...oops.

after breakfast we all gathered in the meeting room for our 1st worship session and introduction to this trip...when a beautiful time of worshiping our Savior was over Susan our team leader says I feel like there is a spirit of fear about. are any of you feeling this? yes we all did..at the time I did not see it until 3 days later when it was apparent to me that I was in a constant spiritual battle.
after rebuking the enemy and the spirit of fear we got down to logistics.
Susan asked if anyone would be willing to switch to the medical team.my hand among others went up.she looked at me and said no absolutely not... at first i thought she was joking..but alas she was not...I was to stay on Outreach team.which is cool

we had 3 teams Outreach,Orphanage,and Medical

next we got right down to business when Susan say ok bring all the PB&J you brought its time to make the first set of sandwiches

so 6 of us including myself got right into it.the girls spreading the Jelly started by spreading it lightly as to think we dont want to run out...Susan came by and said Oh No "Let the jelly flow" soak the bread in jelly and be plentiful with the Peanut butter!
we had 20 jars of each and 22 of each on the way!
after the sandwiches were made and packaged we loaded our buses with Bags and water then headed off to the Airport to meet and pick up Team L.A.

while we wait for them to arrive the girls decide lets all play a game.i can honestly say i have no idea what the game was called but everyone had to pick a animal and make up a sign for it then when that was complete we start clapping,next one person would called out there animal and do there sign followed by doing the sign of someone else.that person would do thiers and call someone elses out..it was an interesting game.next Barrett decided that this game was weak so he showed us his game called Waatah...don't ask cause im not explaining it..it was funny though.after a few hours our other half had arrived! we all greeted eachother help them load their bags and we were off for a 2hr ride to our first home in Jinja,Uganda

all along the way their were lots of things to see,pictures to be taken and many places where we were not allowed to take pictures because if we were caught the Ugandan Police/military could confinscate our camera's
moments later we had arrived at the Paradise on the Nile hotel.where no matter how tired we were that local security insisted that we form to lines male and female to be searched for weapons and other things that would be a threat to other hotel guest..next i believe they wanted to search our bags. but dont think they did.

so we checked in got our room assignments and who we would be rooming with for the next week...that tookFoooooorrrrrrreeeeevvvvveeeeerrrrrrr!
we all went to our rooms breifly and head down to the "storage room" where we had our very first team meeting as a whole group.1st we start as every meeting should always meet byt praising our God and King! next on to introductions....with introduction out of the way.it was done to business and scheduling for the week.we split up into our 3 teams and did a little work before we all headed to some very much needed rest.